The Man in Lower Ten eBook

The cat lay by the fire, its nose on its folded paws,
content in the warmth and companionship. I watched
it idly. Now and then the green wood hissed
in the fire, but the cat never batted an eye.
Through an unshuttered window the lightning flashed.
Suddenly the cat looked up. It lifted its head
and stared directly at the gallery above. Then
it blinked, and stared again. I was amused.
Not until it had got up on its feet, eyes still riveted
on the balcony, tail waving at the tip, the hair on
its back a bristling brush, did I glance casually
over my head.

From among the shadows a face gazed down at me, a
face that seemed a fitting tenant of the ghostly room
below. I saw it as plainly as I might see my
own face in a mirror. While I stared at it with
horrified eyes, the apparition faded. The rail
was there, the Bokhara rug still swung from it, but
the gallery was empty.

The cat threw back its head and wailed.

CHAPTER XXIV

HIS WIFE’S FATHER

I jumped up and seized the fire tongs. The cat’s
wail had roused Hotchkiss, who was wide-awake at once.
He took in my offensive attitude, the tongs, the
direction of my gaze, and needed nothing more.
As he picked up the candle and darted out into the
hall, I followed him. He made directly for the
staircase, and part way up he turned off to the right
through a small door. We were on the gallery
itself; below us the fire gleamed cheerfully, the cat
was not in sight. There was no sign of my ghostly
visitant, but as we stood there the Bokhara rug, without
warning, slid over the railing and fell to the floor
below.

“Man or woman?” Hotchkiss inquired in
his most professional tone.

“Neither—­that is, I don’t know.
I didn’t notice anything but the eyes,”
I muttered. “They were looking a hole in
me. If you’d seen that cat you would realize
my state of mind. That was a traditional graveyard
yowl.”

“I don’t think you saw anything at all,”
he lied cheerfully. “You dozed off, and
the rest is the natural result of a meal on a buffet
car.”

Nevertheless, he examined the Bokhara carefully when
we went down, and when I finally went to sleep he
was reading the only book in sight—­Elwell
on Bridge. The first rays of daylight were coming
mistily into the room when he roused me. He had
his finger on his lips, and he whispered sibilantly
while I tried to draw on my distorted boots.

“I think we have him,” he said triumphantly.
“I’ve been looking around some, and I
can tell you this much. Just before we came in
through the window last night, another man came.
Only—­he did not drop, as you did.
He swung over to the stair railing, and then down.
The rail is scratched. He was long enough ahead
of us to go into the dining-room and get a decanter
out of the sideboard. He poured out the liquor
into a glass, left the decanter there, and took the
whisky into the library across the hall. Then—­he
broke into a desk, using a paper knife for a jimmy.”